What do you think? Announcer says...

My husband always say in a close game a walk can come back to haunt you, in the case tonight it didn't.

Yep,
Just as damaging.
I had to agree.

M&M
We've always told rhp son..."The walks will kill you". 9 times out of 10 that walk is the start of trouble.

The reason it is just as bad as a hr is that now with one swing of the bat they can tie the game.

Understood. Is it possible that Foulke was being very careful with Matsui? Does a pitcher feel differently about giving up a walk as compared to a homerun?

its only just as damaging if he scores. if he actually hits a solo hr dont you think it starts a rally? sometimes you can kill a team by walking thier best hitter. seen it done 5 times in a game (barry bonds)

I disagree because a home run is a run period. With the walk the next batter could have hit into a double play. There's still a force at second base as well on the ball hit in the hole left side. Plus the momentom of a hr is much greater than a walk. It was definitely not a good thing but it was not as damageing as a hr.

In that situation only the second run makes a difference. With teams and hitters that good, and the history of these 2 teams, I don't want the tying run at the plate. Arron "freakin" Boone, Bucky "freakin" Dent.

McCarver's time has passed !!!!

Had to run out for a little while last night, and listened to the game on ESPN radio. Joe Morgan added so much more insight to the game than McCarver. I agree with TR.

Hey, I like McCarver and perhaps he was a bit over the top, the point was a leadoff walk usually comes back to haunt you and we've all seen that over and over and over.

(What a great show! Missing the sleep is killing me but worth every second. Wakefield scares me every pitch so that'll keep me alert tonight.)

p.s. Joe Morgan and John Miller are the best. And Jim Palmer is wonderful as an analyst, but only us long suffering O's fans hear him.......

After hearing me say "would you just shut up" to the t.v. for the umpteenth time, my 14 year-old son ask..."Dad, does he just make up stuff to fill the air time?"

Oh, by the way FUN, I agree Morgan is a more "educated" in his comments...even though I think he goes on a little too much sometimes, also. A few years ago I remember him commenting re: the "in the proximity" call on double plays..."even though it may look like they are off the bag when the ball is caught, they really are tagging it, they're just so smooth it appears that way to the common person" (or some blather close to that). He evidently was not educated enough to understand the presence of slo-mo instant replay.

Big

Yes, if the pitcher got them 1 - 2 - 3 then the tying run would not be at the plate. Pretty difficult three to go 1 - 2 - 3 Just pointing out that is wasn't as bad as a homerun.

McCarver is an idiot........He tries to explain what the hitters are doing, and he isn't capable of doing it.....He gets it wrong every time.......He is clueless about hitting and pitching......Absolutely clueless!!!...



McCarver>>>>>>>>>>

I know that chicks dig the long ball, but depending on the score and situation (not last nights game), I've often thought that a homerun can be a rally killer. If you are down by four or more runs and have a runner or two on, home run gets you closer, but then you have to start all over again. JMO

My saying to my son was "Oh those bases on balls!". While I don't necessarily agree about it being as good as a home run, not forcing the batter to put it in play created a chance that one dinger could tie the game.

I agree with what he meant.

I’m sure that if he had 10 minutes to go into detail he would have explained that he was exaggerating the point when saying he may as well have given up a homerun instead of a walk.

Astute baseball people realize that walking a batter in the last inning when you have at least a two run lead is not good baseball no matter who is up to bat. The point he made was that by walking the batter, you do not even give your defense a chance to make an out. The worst thing that can happen if the batter hits the ball is that it’s a homerun but they would still need another run to tie the game.

Of course if given the choice between giving up a homerun or a walk you’d choose the walk. With the walk you would give your defense more opportunities to get outs including the possibility of a double play.

As bad as McCarver can be, in this instance I would cut him slack. He had to figure that most people up this late are baseball fans who knew what he “meant”.

The other day when he didn't know how the bunt applies to the infield fly rule and he's an ex MLB catcher, I find pretty revealing.

SBK, I agree......As much as I think McCarver is an idiot, a walk in that situation is a very bad result regardless if he scores, or not.....

McCarver is an idiot .....period

The most important out going into the ninth is the lead off hitter.

The difference between no outs with a runner on first vs 1 out no one on.....is tremendous.

I believe that was the point he was making although he said it very poorly.

I agree......McCarver is a joke.

Did you see/hear Kennedy try to explain Schillings inability to "push" off the rubber in the studio before the game.........Another clueless announcer.

Crucial - sure. But as good as - not hardly.

Bottom line - a solo HR puts a run on the scoreboard

A lead off walk does not.

Sure, it may give you the potential to put one up later, but it still has to be done.

Kinda like counting your eggs before they hatch.

The average number of runs scored with no outs and nobody on is .5415. The average number of runs scored with no outs and a man on 1st is .9769. If the leadoff man homers you get 1+.5415=1.5415 vs .9769 a very big difference. The leadoff homer is of course far better than the leadoff walk.

The real question is with the count 3-2 should Foulke have grooved a pitch and taken his chance with a home run or extra base hit vs. Matsui hitting it to someone? Let's take a not too rigorous look at that. Given a grooved pitch let's say Matsui hits .600 and gets 50% singles, 25% doubles and 25% home runs out of those hits. That works out to .4 * .3028 + .3*.9769 + .15*1.128 + .15 * 1.5415 = .815 expected runs vs the .9769 expected runs from a leadoff walk. The real unknown is how well Matsui could be expected to do against a grooved pitch but I would expect that a pitcher is better off making sure he throws a strike on 3-2 than walking the leadoff man. We also haven't taken into account what the chance was of Foulke throwing a strike when he isn't trying to groove the pitch.

With no one on base and a two run lead you're supposed to challenge the hitter.

Where's Deon when you need him?

CADad...again, nice stats...you are the teacher, I am the student! I do have a contention with you saying that with the leadoff HR, you get 1 + .5415...isn't the leadoff part of the .5415 sample: therefore, you are "doubling up"?

It could be worse. If ABC had the playoffs they would have Brent Musburger as the play by play man. That man really gets on my nerves.

"Did you see/hear Kennedy try to explain Schillings inability to "push" off the rubber in the studio before the game.........Another clueless announcer."

This was brought up again during the game.....Even isolated his legs with the camera during a pitch......Announcers have no idea what they are seeing on the field.....The camera shows one thing and they see another....

Musberger and McCarver....Who's the biggest idiot?......A tie.......

Daddybo,
Wouldn't be doubling up because you are starting from the exact same situation in either case. The fact that you got a home run to lead off an inning doesn't affect the odds of scoring runs given a no outs nobody on situation. You're falling prey to the "It's come up heads three times in a row so now there's a better chance it will be tails this time" fallacy. There's still a 50-50 chance of it coming up tails on the next flip.

Joe Buck makes some really stupid statements about hitting, also......

O.K. O.K.....uuhhhhh...I need to go lie down, my head's hurting.

I guess I was leaning more to stats not meaning quite as much in one particular situation...sort of like chances of taking it to game 7 (after one team loses first three) were zero...because it had never happened before.

Best statement by Joe Buck so far is..."Slamma Lamma...DINGDONG!

DaddyBo,
Applying statistics improperly, as often happens, can lead to wrong conclusions. If team 1 beats team 2 three times in a row to start a series then team 1 is usually a better team than team 2. So let's assume that team 1 is good enough to win 6 out of 10 games against team 2 on average. The chances of team two winning 3 games in a row becomes .4 * .4 * .4 or about a 1 in 16 chance. If team 1 is good enough to beat team 2 seven out of 10 times on average then it would be about a 1 in 40 chance. That makes what has happened in the past reasonable and the fact that the Red Sox have come back to tie the series reasonable since the Red Sox are about even with the Yankees meaning they had about a 1 in 8 chance of coming back after losing the first 3.

Stats don't mean more or less in a given situation. With a smaller sample you are more likely to have deviations from the norm but the probabilities still apply. For example, if I flip a coin 1 time it is not going to come up heads half the time and tails half the time. If I flip a coin twice there's a pretty good chance that it will come up tails twice or heads twice. If I flip a coin a 1000 times odds are there are going to be close to 500 heads and 500 tails.

CADad: Now you've done it...my eyes and ears are bleeding! If you have any mercy in that cold heart, please stop! I think my son might be able to hang with you in a couple of years, but me...I'm hoisting the white flag.

DaddbyBo,
Statistics show that people die from overdoses of meaningless statistics once every ...

Its pretty bad but at least with a guy on 2nd u can turn two.

CADad...there are three kinds of people in the world...those that count, and those that don't!